Senior Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Officer

Job title: Senior Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Officer

ABOUT VILLAGEREACH

VillageReach transforms health care delivery to reach everyone, so that each person has the health care needed to thrive. We develop solutions that improve equity and access to primary health care. This includes making sure products are available when and where they are needed and primary health care services are delivered to the most under-reached. Radical collaboration with governments, the private sector and other partners strengthen our ability to scale and sustain these solutions. Our work increases access to quality health care for more than 46 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. VillageReach in incorporated in Washington State and has offices in Seattle (USA), Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Cote d’ Ivoire, Kenya and Mozambique.

SUMMARY

In consultation with the Manager of Monitoring and Evaluation (in DRC), The Senior Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Officer will provide technical leadership for the monitoring, evaluation, learning and adaptive management on a new large grant focused on improving routine immunization coverage in Lomami Province. The position will lead the operationalization of the program's MEL framework and measurement of the program’s Theory of Change, ensuring that VillageReach can reliably determine whether zero-dose and under-immunized children are being identified, whether underserved communities are incorporated into microplans, whether planned vaccination sessions actually occur, whether children are reached, and ultimately whether vaccination coverage improves. The Senior MEL Officer will integrate multiple data streams—including DHIS2/Gestion PEV, digital session reporting, GTS/geospatial data, supply-chain monitoring, supervision findings, community data and qualitative evidence—to generate actionable information monthly for programme management, government and health facility decision-making. The position will work closely with the Project Senior Manager, global Research, Evidence and Learning Director and with a geospatial mapping partner while maintaining VillageReach’s overall responsibility for programme monitoring, learning and donor reporting. In addition to leading the project’s M&E. This program will be supported by an external evaluation team who will conduct a baseline and endline coverage survey, this position along with the Global Director of Research, Evidence and Learning will be the points of contact for the external evaluators. Lastly, this project will also be supporting a small pilot of an intervention of Community Health Workers as Vaccinators, the Senior MEL Officer will support the creation and execution of the research, data collection and analysis plan for that pilot.

This position reports to the Manager of Monitoring and Evaluation (in DRC), with a dotted reporting line to a Director of Research, Evidence and Learning (global level).

Role Description:

Essential duties and responsibilities include the following. Other duties, responsibilities and activities may change or be assigned at any time.

1. MEL System Leadership and Implementation

• Lead the development, refinement and implementation of the detailed project MEL Plan, indicator reference sheets, data-flow architecture, reporting calendar, data-quality procedures and learning agenda.
• Translate the project Theory of Change into measurable indicators and practical monitoring systems.
• Ensure alignment between VillageReach monitoring indicators, funder standard indicators, learning questions, programme milestones and government routine immunization information systems.
• Lead periodic review and refinement of indicators during inception and implementation as programme design and learning needs evolve.

2. Vaccination Coverage, Zero-Dose and Dropout Monitoring

• Lead analysis of routine immunization performance, including DTP1, DTP3, MR1 and other agreed tracer antigens.
• Monitor trends in vaccination coverage, zero-dose children, under-immunization and DTP1–DTP3 / DTP3–MR1 dropout.
• Triangulate DHIS2/Gestion PEV data with project monitoring, geospatial information, microplans and other available sources to identify inconsistencies and emerging performance gaps.
• Support interpretation of independent baseline and annual vaccination coverage survey findings and translate results into programme recommendations.

3. Outreach, Mobile and Fixed-Session Performance Monitoring

• Establish systems to compare planned versus completed vaccination sessions, including fixed, outreach, mobile and gathering-point strategies.
• Monitor session frequency, reliability, supervision, geographic reach and the extent to which services reach hard-to-reach or previously missed communities.
• Analyse whether increased outreach and mobile activities are affecting the availability or quality of fixed vaccination services.
• Develop early-warning analyses to identify missed sessions, repeated implementation gaps and underperforming health areas.

4. Geospatial and GTS Data Integration

• Work closely with the geospatial mapping partner to integrate geospatial mapping, GTS vaccinator tracking, settlement mapping and travel/access information into the VillageReach MEL system.
• Triangulate GTS tracks against micro-plans, session reports and community information to determine whether vaccination teams reached planned locations.
• Support analysis of geographic equity and identify settlements or populations that remain unreached.
• Ensure geospatial evidence is translated into practical recommendations for revised microplans and outreach strategies.

5. Data Quality and Verification

• Develop and oversee project Data Quality Assurance protocols covering completeness, timeliness, accuracy, consistency, validity and source-document verification.
• Conduct routine data-quality reviews and periodic DQAs at provincial, health-zone and health-facility levels.
• Ensure reconciliation across DHIS2/Gestion PEV, vaccination registers, tally sheets, digital session reports, GTS, community registers and project databases where appropriate.
• Document discrepancies and establish corrective-action mechanisms with programme and government teams.

6. Learning and Adaptive Management

• Lead monthly and quarterly synthesis of quantitative and qualitative evidence to answer the project's key learning questions.
• Support the design and coordinate qualitative assessments involving health workers, RECOs, caregivers, community leaders and government stakeholders.
• Analyze unintended effects, including health-worker workload, RECO workload, impact on fixed sessions, caregiver experience and contextual changes.
• Facilitate monitoring-for-action sessions so that evidence results in documented corrective actions, responsible persons and deadlines.
• Track implementation of corrective actions through subsequent review cycles.

7. CHW/RECO Vaccinator Pilot MEL

• If approved, support development of the MEL component of the CHW/RECO-as-vaccinators pilot.
• Support development of indicators covering additional children vaccinated, coverage, quality and safety, AEFI reporting, cold-chain compliance, data quality, workload, retention, supervision requirements and acceptability.
• Support baseline, mid-term and end-of-pilot assessments and generate evidence to inform government decisions regarding potential scale-up.

8. Donor Reporting and Milestones

• Coordinate MEL contributions to quarterly updates, inception reports, annual reviews and final grant reporting.
• Track MEL-related milestones and ensure deliverables are produced according to agreed timelines.
• Prepare high-quality dashboards, analytical briefs, presentations and evidence summaries for VillageReach management, the Funder, government and partners.
• Provide technical inputs into responses to donor questions related to programme performance, monitoring methodology and learning.

9. Capacity Strengthening and Government Data Use

• Strengthen capacity of the Provincial Health Division, EPI branches, Health Zone Management Teams and facility teams to analyze and use their own data.
• Support monthly Health Zone reviews and quarterly provincial performance reviews.
• Coach MEL Officers, programme staff and government counterparts in data interpretation, root-cause analysis, visualization and corrective-action planning.

Competencies:

VillageReach has ten (10) Organizational Competencies that describe how we work together and get things done that are grouped into three strategic areas of Achieving Great Results, Setting Direction and, Bringing Others With you. For a full description, please download our Organizational Competency document.

Achieving Great Results:

1. Risk Taking and Innovation

• Key Behaviors: Comfort with ambiguity, curiosity, adaptability, unconstrained and undeterred creativity, resourcefulness.

2. Business Judgement

• Key Behaviors: Getting to root causes, understanding environment, navigating complexity and ambiguity, entrepreneurial energy.

3. Building Strong Teams

• Key Behaviors: Trust in Subject Matter Experts (SME’s); radical candor to resolve conflict, hold each other accountable as colleagues, focused on results, commitment to mission.

Setting Direction:

4. Compelling Communication

• Key Behaviors: Clear and evidence-based communication, audience adaptability, curious listener.

5. Resilient Self Leadership

• Key Behaviors: Self-aware, plan how one shows up, emotionally intelligent, use one’s own agency and takes accountability.

6. Stewardship and Personal Alignment

• Key Behaviors: Take ownership, display ethical conduct, effective at resource management, alignment of personal objectives with organizational goals and mission, focus on continuous improvement and sustainability.

Bringing Others with You:

7. Influencing Leadership

• Key Behaviors: Cultivate trust, influences to make change, navigate the matrix structure.

8. Radical Partnership

• Key Behaviors: Share information and credit, address conflict, increase impact through collaboration, political and contextual awareness.

9. Cultivates a Growth Mindset

• Key Behaviors: Seek out diverse input, demonstrate flexibility in thinking and curiosity, embrace challenges, demonstrate persistence, seek learning opportunities.

10. Cultural Intelligence and Inclusion

• Key Behaviors: Continuous learning and ally-ship across cultural lines, challenge prejudice and bias, modeled in one’s own behavior.

Requirements

• To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in public health, epidemiology, statistics, monitoring and evaluation, health information systems, social sciences or a related discipline; Master’s degree preferred.
• At least five-seven years of relevant experience in monitoring and evaluation, preferably in immunization, primary healthcare, community health or health-system strengthening.
• At least one concrete example of acting as the M&E lead for a medium to large program
• Experience triangulating data from disparate datasets to provide a comprehensive picture of a program’s performance. Practical experience with routine health data, DHIS2 or comparable health information systems.
• Experience in field data verification, data-quality checks and preparation of routine monitoring reports.
• Experience with digital data-collection tools, Excel and data visualization; exposure to Power BI is an advantage.
• Familiarity with vaccination registers, routine immunisation indicators, zero-dose monitoring or EPI systems is an advantage.